TYPES OF ACUTE ABDOMEN: CLINICAL AND SURGICAL APPROACH

Abstract

Acute abdomen syndrome can be characterized by non-traumatic and sudden abdominal pain, which may or may not be associated with other signs and symptoms. In these cases, the need or not for a surgical approach must be assessed when investigating a possible diagnosis of the patient. Bearing in mind the great importance of this topic for public health in general, this narrative literature review brought together articles from the PUBMED database aiming to explore in the selected literature the most frequent causes of acute abdomen according to its subtypes, in addition to pointing out the difference between them from the point of view of the incidence of associated signs and symptoms. It was concluded that the signs and symptoms of acute abdomen subtypes (inflammatory, perforative, obstructive, hemorrhagic and vascular) may indicate differences between them. It can be inferred that the most common causes are the following: non-specific abdominal pain, acute appendicitis, intestinal obstruction, perforated peptic ulcer, acute diverticulitis, acute cholecystitis, acute pancreatitis and acute salpingitis.